Detect Evil: Should it return?
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IRC debate going on before this post. DE returning because of different environment and so on.
Before, it was removed largely due (mind you this is what we know as players, official DM stance might be way different) to players abusing it, and using it in ways that were borderline, if not outright, metagaming and OOCly hindering evil concepts. As well as a large lack of counterplay towards the use of Detect Evil, and making it limited towards DM-approved usage only.
In return, paladins were given more slack because of not having DE to tell them if they were playing with an evil PC or not. As opposed to before where DE existed, and paladins were given less leniency (unless the player was confirmed to be new to the server) on questing with evil.
So should it come back? Important points on why it was removed:
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DM team (at the time) demonstrated a heavy dislike of the mechanic.
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It was removed largely because of metagaming and using it to flat out block concepts from things such as infiltrating good/law factions and corrupting/whatever goals.
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There was little-to-no counterplay past being nice and not doing stuff to set off paladin radars.
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Detect Evil Blockers (the Amulet of Hidden Intentions) weren't freely available, nor did the DE blocker spells actually work. Allegedly, on that last one. I can't remember if it was ever proven or not that stuff like Protection from Good actually worked or was intended to.
Points for bringing it back (according to me):
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The playerbase is more mature vs 8-10 years ago when Detect Evil was removed as a mechanic.
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Paladins are more comprehensively understood now. They're not the afk DE spam bots they were portrayed as.
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Paladins are more available than just LG. LE, CE, CG can receive their appropriate Detect [] opposite ability now. IE CG receives Detect Law, LE receives Detect Chaos, etc.
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DE blockers can be more freely available, especially from shady merchants or simply more DM drops.
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Spell/feat failure is more easily enforced (At least I'd assume it's easier to disable it for an offender now vs 8-10 years ago) on people that aren't able to maturely use the spells.
Restrictions should be enforced if it's agreed to support Detect Evil/Alignment once again:
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Make it 1/day per rest. This prevents people spamming it on any new PCs they come into contact with. Or alternatively, give them 1 extra use per every 3 or 4 paladin levels. This prevents cheesy multiclasses like the saves Superman paladin build having too much power granted indirectly.
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Abusing it (The definition of which is at DM discretion) can be grounds for spell failure/feat disabling. In the past, such behavior was punishable via bad roleplay tokens, this would be the acceptable substitute.
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Other ideas?
Assuming it comes back, this is how I see each paladin getting it:
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Lawful Good - Regains Detect Evil, no other special versions.
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Lawful Evil - Gains Detect Chaos.
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Chaotic Good - Gains Detect Law.
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Chaotic Evil - Gains Detect Law.
My understanding with the 4 corners paladins is that while LE/CE hate good, they really hate their opposite more. The same reasoning is for Freedom Paladin as well. While they hate evil, they hate anybody who opposes freedom, thus causing conflict with LG.
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Unless there are lots more stuff for evil people in old town and more areas, and things you can do in said places with less people, definitely not. Cuz then anyone not evil will just be like "oh the paladin says he's evil cuz of mechanics, so lets shun / FD him."
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tbh, it'll just set it so that people who are evil play neutral concepts instead and let themselves fall to evil through IG actions. Much like enchanter mages avoid playing evil b/c PfEvil.
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Unless there are lots more stuff for evil people in old town and more areas, and things you can do in said places with less people, definitely not. Cuz then anyone not evil will just be like "oh the paladin says he's evil cuz of mechanics, so lets shun / FD him."
You've a point, but that's something back then too that happened. More often than not, the paladin was ignored on it. DE needed more restrictions back then past "git gud, stop doing blatantly evil stuff".
We can fix that now, we have people interested in making fun stuff IG with drawbacks/safeguards.
Also detecting a Lawful character as CG/CE doesn't necessarily mean the concept's ruined, after all it can be an LE priest of a CE char's NE god, as a quick example. IE LE Sharran vs CE Sharran.
tbh, it'll just set it so that people who are evil play neutral concepts instead and let themselves fall to evil through IG actions. Much like enchanter mages avoid playing evil b/c PfEvil.
No, enchanter mages don't play because Saves Whore builds are far more common now than v3/4 when getting hit by a Hold Person/Monster meant 99% of the playerbase was screwed. It's saves builds that are the problem, not PfE. I know this because my last character, Laya, was an Enchanter.
Convenient Evil concepts were a problem in v3 and often were shunned subtly by DMs if not outright punished via bad RP tokens. I safely presume that with the current DM team, if you try a Convenient Evil character, you'll be quickly shifted to evil.
That sort of crap doesn't fly now vs the time period when this was common as hell.
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Nope. Leave it at it is.
No idea if it's canon or what; but it's anti-roleplay. People with evil alignments should be doing evil things. Players at odds with that should be doing all they can to keep a finger on the pulse of the underworld to know what's going on. A magical button that tells you someone is deceiving you takes all the fun away.
Using a personal example, Kreswell is never entrusted with the Staff of Ilmater if the Paladin that gave it to him has detect evil. That entire plot is undone not with roleplay but with a quick right-click function key.
I find it far more suffocating for storytelling than beneficial.
With the decreasing playerbase comparitive to five/ten years ago, players of opposite alignments need to rub shoulders with each other otherwise they're ostracised. A Paladin using his radar to cherry pick those at odds with his alignment and isolating them will be disastrous.
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Nope. Leave it at it is.
No idea if it's canon or what; but it's anti-roleplay. People with evil alignments should be doing evil things. Players at odds with that should be doing all they can to keep a finger on the pulse of the underworld to know what's going on. A magical button that tells you someone is deceiving you takes all the fun away.
Using a personal example, Kreswell is never entrusted with the Staff of Ilmater if the Paladin that gave it to him has detect evil.
I find it far more suffocating for storytelling than beneficial.
With the decreasing playerbase comparitive to five/ten years ago, players of opposite alignments need to rub shoulders with each other otherwise they're ostracised. A Paladin using his radar to cherry pick those at odds with his alignment and isolating them will be disastrous.
That's also a concern I pointed out, that it was originally removed because people were metagaming and it was outright suffocating stuff like an evil character infiltrating Team Good.
And tbh from what I remember back then, you'd have still gotten it because people did silly stuff (From an IC perspective, before anybody mistakes my words!) like that. :D
As I noted, a paladin using his Detect ability (which is a DIVINE GIFT, NOT TO BE USED ON A WHIM, IMPORTANTLY!) to do that theorized cherry picking is a paladin who is going to lose his feats and spells very quickly. We have much more vigilant DMs now who will drop the spell/feat failure hammer on people being idiots. And people are much better these days about understanding that clerics and paladins aren't people who have healing and buff spells, and hit really hard. They're divine conduits and do more than just afk buff/smash on quests.
Also as I said in the OP, DE coming back does assume that restrictions and counters are put back in. It's not going to be a free spam ability like in v2 and v3. There's got to be solid anti-counterplay to it.
Namely making it much easier to actually work against it rather than praying the paladin doesn't suspect you.
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What I miss from the OP is reasons why it should return.
There is an argument why it wouldn't cause problems.
But I feel it's unneeded. Totally. -
What I miss from the OP is reasons why it should return.
There is an argument why it wouldn't cause problems.
But I feel it's unneeded. Totally.Actually I did post reasons why it should return, did you miss them? It's the second bolded entry.
That being said, IRC debate happening during this again, here's the log:
[16:08] Forte, you mean the Detect Evil?
[16:08] I had read that and was having a think about it
[16:09] Yeah.
[16:09] You were DMing back when people were metagaming their asses off with it.
[16:09] So I figured you'd be able to shed light on what the official DM answer back then was for why it was removed.
[16:09] Wasn't just metagaming
[16:09] I mean besides from players thinking "Well, Moloch said he hates paladins, so.."
[16:09] Ugh, I can't remember what the official answer at the time was.
[16:09] Cause that's what we tohught back then.
[16:10] But it was quite frankly a PITA for evil characters to do much if everyone just went "YOU'RE EVIL AND THEREFORE NO GOOD"
[16:10] We thought largely cause people were metagaming + outright cockblocking evil concepts from working due to it.
[16:10] So a lot of concepts just fell flat because no-one would work with them, so had fuck all to do.
[16:10] But it went both ways on that one, paladin players were stupid for it.
[16:10] But DMs were at fault too.
[16:10] Cause they didn't make it easier to beat DE, or supply more counters.
[16:10] I saw maybe 3 DE blockers in 4 years of playing CoA, when DE was still active.
[16:10] And I played a goddamn UH member.
[16:11] THAT is not a good sign.
[16:11] There were several counters but as I remember, the permanent ones were rare and the spells at low levels only lasted a short while.
[16:11] Yes.
[16:11] One of the only ways to have DE back… Would be if Paladins will be App only Class
[16:11] We have people like Strife now who can better adjust stuff like that.
[16:11] And can easily disable paladins who are being complete idiots.
[16:11] I think the DMs generally felt that if a Paladin wanted to DE they could just get a DM
[16:11] ALTERNATIVELY: make it a spell, that doesn't 100% ID who it is
[16:11] that's kinda what I remember
[16:12] Unless you are being borderline metagamey and using it with only one other person neraby.
[16:12] IE it can be an alternation.
[16:12] ALteration, not alternation.
[16:12] Making it a spell might make it easier to balance than giving it back to paladins.
[16:12] On the flip side it's not Evil should be outright shunned either
[16:12] Because a spell is not the same as something granted by a god among paladin powers.
[16:12] Thus, much weaker.
[16:12] There are plenty of "Good" things that Evil characters can do.
[16:13] [16:11] I think the DMs generally felt that if a Paladin wanted to DE they could just get a DM <- that's also a problem, it gives a DM more work to do IG.
[16:13] Not every evil is eat the souls of baby kind of sides
[16:13] Forte, 'tis also true.
[16:13] And DMs can have a different opinion on what it's okay to use DE for.
[16:13] IE obviously no DM thinks you should use DE on a balor
[16:13] they're 99.9% likely to be evil, so what's the point, lol
[16:13] But using it on a shady hooded guy following oyu around
[16:13] might just be okay
[16:14] At the time I think the DMs just thought it was more hassle than it was worth for all sides
[16:14] Yep. But that was as previously said, with a younger playerbase.
[16:14] We were more prone to doing stupid shit back then.
[16:14] And I don't think there was ever a true concenus between all the DMs on how a Paladin should be and act
[16:14] Nowadays we still do stupid shit, but not as often!
[16:14] Let alone what constituted "helping evil"
[16:14] Also yes, that ties into what I just said about DMs differing on what's DE worthy.
[16:14] Helping evil should be willful helping.
[16:15] Going on a quest where the evil guy steals something out form underneath you, because he followed behind you and you didn't know it
[16:15] does not equal helping evil
[16:15] Then again if you have an evil person hiring people to save or protect someone, is that helping evil?
[16:15] Yes a paladin may THINK they're to blame and maybe they are, but it's not something that should slap them wtih chaos/evil points, nor sohuld it give them a risk of losing powers.
[16:15] There becomes so many nuanced areas
[16:16] It's a classic fantasy scenario of a villain using team good to do the dirty work.
[16:16] Without them being aware.
[16:16] : We were more prone to doing stupid shit back then. <-back then. My logging in at all proves that tradition is alive and well.
[16:16] Personally I didn't care when it was removed.
[16:16] me neither
[16:16] I didn't care much back then either, but I knew which paladins (at least some of them) were responsible for abusing it and getting it removed.
[16:16] =/
[16:16] and with all the other cool stuff done with paladins since, it's a fine trade off imo
[16:16] Though the spell alteration isn't terrible either
[16:16] It was painfull yobvious too lol
[16:16] Cast a spell to do it >_>
[16:17] Yes, I think we could do with Detect [] as an alteration, and have it as much weaker than a true one cast from a paladin.
[16:17] Which can still remain DM-only.
[16:17] It works out tbh, DMs can still enforce full DE at their discretion and we get back an interesting mechanic.
[16:17] And it can be a FOIG what creates the alteration.
[16:18] And going by alterations, you can script them to last a lot longer than the default NWN spells too, in order to work as a counter towards Detect Alignment.
[16:19] I mean if you did it as an alteration
[16:19] I biggest concern as then would be being an outcast and lumping in different types of Evil together
[16:19] I would make it so Detect Alignment works within 20 points for non-div specialists
[16:19] Maybe even 30
[16:20] Halve it for SF Div
[16:20] And halve again for GSF DivTl,dr; One of the DMs who was actively DMing back then chimed in on what they remembered of why DE was removed, I brought up maybe it should be an alteration instead of returning as a Paladin ability.
It also makes it easier to balance it, as well as script counters/bonuses to it. It'd also be much weaker and leaves it to DM discretion whether or not a use of Detect Alignment (working name) would reveal as much as a true one.
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I did not.
These are mechanical and OOC reasons.
Why would we NEED this to be IG? What would it change to the better?It's a server based on PVP conflict, detect evil was invented for PnP, basically a player versus environment game.
It's a tool for another type of game. That is the reason it had to be removed. -
I did not.
These are mechanical and OOC reasons.
Why would we NEED this to be IG? What would it change to the better?It's a server based on PVP conflict, detect evil was invented for PnP, basically a player versus environment game.
It's a tool for another type of game. That is the reason it had to be removed.You can say the same about a lot of feats and such that were intended for PVE application but found their way into PVP use (Holds, Knockdown/Improved Knockdown, etc).
Detect Evil was largely removed for OOC reasons, I pointed out why they didn't apply anymore, as well as listed the known reasons why it was removed.
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The implementation used to be left up to DMs, where you might get a super vague tell about an evil presence nearby. This apparently is an attitude that has been dropped in favor of allowing PCs to figure out who is evil on their own.
I frankly like the idea of leaving it in the players hands, as it can create much more interesting situations than even vaguely telling pcs there is evil nearby.
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Yes, absolutely.
If an evil PC can't deal with being outed or making friends despite some dumb paladin mouthing off he might as well die. Being evil should be challenging. Where is the fun in it otherwise? I'd be bored out of my mind playing evil on this server if paladins really have no detect evil.
I don't even get what kind of argument you could make against it.
"Then they will metagame that they are evil!" - how? It's IC knowledge.
"Then they will not take them on a quest." - so? That's roleplay.
"Then everyone will know X is evil!" - so? Deal with it or drink the potion that will counter the ability.
"Then people know they need to use protection vs. evil to protect from my Wands of Holding!" - see 1Honestly, if your 'evul plan' is foiled by a paladin going 'you are evil, nobody help this guy!' you must be playing a guy with 8 INT and 8 CHA. Just discredit the paladin, or frame your evil as a good thing, or make friends who don't care, or bribe people, or have an assassin kill the paladin, or even better, kill the paladin and use his blood to summon a demon. jfc, you guys are strange sometimes. It's an in-world limitation and hazard. The game is far more boring without it.
"But Jasede, plot guy X would never have been entrusted with plot device Y if some guy had detected evil on him!"
Yes, so? That just means the story wouldn't be "X was given Y and dastardly used it to do Z" but instead "X BRUTALLY MURDERED the guy who held Y and took it! Someone stop him!" - or anything you want. Stole it. Had demons summoned to reclaim it. Hired murderers. Used political pressure.On EfU this has never been a problem, why would it be a problem here? What exactly is different? Don't tell me it's because of the focus on 'intrigue' and 'plots', we have that on EfU.
I guess this is a philosophical question: intrigue versus conflict. Being able to more easily lie about your alignment fosters intrigue. But I prefer direct conflict: detect evil facilitates instant hostility, adversity and thus, challenge and fun. No detect evil is pretty carebear.
Spiffy, bring it back! With no restrictions, too!
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Jasede you can't compare CoA to EFU, especially in this case. EFU is more evilly aligned, with the major factions being either neutral or evil. On top of that, for EFU almost all of the quests aren't out of the main city like CoA is, and EFU has waaaay more evil support.
CoA only has 1 actual evil faction, while the rest are either good or neutral.
That's not to say you can't have things like evil militia, it's just that CoA doesn't have the questing support to do so.
Plus, no one really gets any benefit in CoA for associating with evil people, unless you're evil. Especially since the "evil" faction is against every single other faction, and has no kind of alliances with any of them. Thus making it quite hard to find any kind of helping support unless its your direct buddies.
How this ties into the discussion: adding detect evil will only make things even more black and white with very little intregue or infiltrating kinds of things. It's pretty much impossible to get decent leveling, loot, and gold amounts, if you're forced to just operate out of Shylocks, since if a pally just auto-ids you as evil, no one except other evil people will party with you. You might say "ohh but they wont do that!" They have before, and will continue to do so. adding a tool that just allows for even more shunning / metagaming doesn't help. "People won't do it because it doesn't add stories." I have had wordless FDs and pvps before, just because I would potentially inhibit their plot. I can't see Detect Evil actually adding any benefit to the server, except making it even harder to play evil.
If there were more evil-themed or quests just for criminals, for parties of 2-3 (and it can be challenging to even get a third) or just even quests they had access to that aren' max level 6 (triumvirate is iffy, due to its difficulty, and no gold payout, and is like the only level 8 quest there).
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Those are very fair and sensible points, especially considering my rough tone. If put like that it becomes a lot more understandable.
That said to me that just means there should be more criminal elements, more grey or evil factions and more stuff outside town to support evil concepts. It was ten or so years ago but when I played my werewolf the only support I had, read income and XP, came from killing spawns on the road.
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You realize that there are several quests where the rewards are bloodstones and other evil kinds of loot,in fact you would be hard pressed to find quests that reward "good" characters anywhere near as much as you get stuff for evil ones.
Also isn't there only one Good DM faction and one Neutral DM faction?
TBH i don't care either way but it is a cannon power that makes sense i never had it effect any evil pc negatively,back in V3 only time i encountered it being used to exclude my pc was from a paladin that has just joined the merciful swords,unfortunately for them they had been working with my evil cleric for 2 weeks up to that point and they got kicked out of the faction after this was discovered :twisted:
So ive seen it benefit evil pc's ive seen it ignored because my evil character was better liked than the paladin,and ive seen it lead to conflict.
The negatives seem to only apply to those evil pc's that are pretending to be good pc's..
So why not add a script to make high bluff skills able to counter or resist it. -
Because rerolls exist. :)
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Could make it once an hour or once a reset, that bluff check. That's not much of an objection.
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Short answer: no. Long answer: no, because in my experience, from observing its use, it was only ever used to exclude people from quest groups.
Having bluff act as a counter makes no sense, bluff is a social skill used to lie, and in no ways effects a characters metaphysical qualities.
If your paladin wants to exclude people, or make judgements about them for looking a bit shifty, then that's fine and perfectly ic, but DE just ruins the game for people who might not be a high enough level to have 20 bluff.
If you want to know someone's alignment then watch how they behave.
Furthermore, I'd ask exactly what need there is to have DE in game, when we have functioned well for years now since it was removed.
While it is a canon ability in pnp, typically all of the players are within the same group and the only people it causes trouble for are npcs.
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From my perspective, DE made playing a paladin more challenging and had little to no effect on evil at all. And that is why I always liked the ability. I don't think it will ever come back, mind you, lest the ghost of moloch comes back to haunt us all. But I do like the idea of having bluff counter it if it did return, since I think that "sneaky evil" should be a specific character type and not the norm.
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Hard to be a paladin that fights evil if you can't find out who is evil.
I'd simply state that DE is not admissible as 'proof' and accusing people of being evil without solid proof of action is slander and can make the paladin fall. Yes, it's a divination, but technically it's a form of scrying a violation of privacy. More solid evidence would need to be gained if it were to hold up in Court.
AKA: Paladins can't kill people just for being 'evil,' they need proof of their deeds. I'd say the same standard should apply to accusations. You cannot accuse someone of being evil without documented evidence or reports.